Project Scorpio Reveal - Specs and Details

Microsoft has shed a bit of light on the upcoming mid-generation console codenamed Project Scorpio.

Microsoft invited Digital Foundry out to Redmond, WA to discuss the Project Scorpio reveal and exactly what the hardware specs will look like when the console ships within the next year. Some have been asking how much will Project Scorpio cost, and while Microsoft hasn’t revealed that information yet, we do know quite a bit about the upcoming console. This article covers the Project Scorpio reveal so you can understand the purpose of the console and maybe even guess how much Project Scorpio will cost, even if we’re not yet ready to provide that speculation.

Focus on 4K

One of the main focuses of Project Scorpio is to take the best-selling games on the Xbox One and showcase them in 4K resolution at a constant framerate. The main game showcasing this ability was ForzaTech, which basically took the settings Forza 6 would have used, but runs the tech demo at 60fps with a 4K resolution. The biggest win from this demonstration? Project Scorpio still had processing power to spare, meaning there’s a lot more the console can do beyond just showcasing games at 4K.

Scorpio is running on a custom AMD chipset that was designed from the ground up to enhance existing Xbox One titles. If you don’t have a 4K display, fear not, the new console will also stabilize framerates for games at 1080p to make sure you have the smoothest possible experience no matter what game you’re playing and what display resolution you’re playing at.

Project Scorpio Specs

At E3 Microsoft teased a series of specs the company was hoping to hit for Project Scorpio. In the near final hardware that was on display in Redmond, almost every single one of those specs was met or in some cases surpassed. From almost every angle, Project Scorpio will be the most powerful console hardware on the market when it releases, making it more powerful than the PlayStation 4 Pro.

Project Scorpio

Xbox One

PS4 Pro

CPU

Eight custom x86 cores (clocked at 2.3GHz).

Eight custom Jaguar cores (clocked at 1.75GHz)

Eight Jaguar cores (clocked at 2.1GHz)

GPU

40 customized compute units at 1172MHz

12 GCN compute units at 853MHz (Xbox One S runs at 914MHz)

36 improved GCN compute units at 911MHz

Memory

12GB GDDR5

8GB DDR3/32MB ESRAM

8GB GDDR5

Memory Bandwidth

326GB/s

DDR3: 68GB/s, ESRAM at max 204GB/s (Xbox One S offers 219GB/s)

218GB/s

Optical Drive

4K UHD Blu-ray

Blu-ray (Xbox One S uses 4K UHD)

Blu-ray

Hard Drive

1TB 2.5-inch

500GB/1TB/2TB 2.5-inch

1TB 2.5-inch

We’ll have more on Project Scorpio, including a price point and official release date in the coming months!